{"id":14535,"date":"2019-05-04T05:35:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T09:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=14535"},"modified":"2019-05-04T05:35:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-04T09:35:01","slug":"justine-damond-us-city-of-minneapolis-pays-family-20m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/05\/04\/justine-damond-us-city-of-minneapolis-pays-family-20m\/","title":{"rendered":"Justine Damond: US city of Minneapolis pays family $20m"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of an Australian woman shot dead by a police officer has been promised $20m (\u00a315.5m) in compensation by the US city of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Noor shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond as she approached his patrol car to report a possible rape behind her Minneapolis home on 15 July 2017.<\/p>\n

Ms Damond, 40, was unarmed and the former policeman was found guilty of her murder on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Her family say they will donate $2m towards fighting gun violence.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, said unprecedented circumstances played a role in the settlement, which is the highest the city in the state of Minnesota has ever paid out.<\/p>\n

“There was not a clear threat before the use of force was made,” said Mr Frey. “This is not a victory for anyone, but rather a way for our city to move forward.”<\/p>\n

The Ruszczyk’s attorney, Robert Bennett, said the family was quietly satisfied with the settlement.<\/p>\n

It would send “an unmistakable message to change the Minneapolis Police Department in ways that will help all of its communities,” he added.<\/p>\n

Noor, 33, is the first police officer in the city’s history to have been found guilty of murder for an on-duty shooting.<\/p>\n

Ms Damond, a yoga instructor from Sydney with dual Australian and US citizenship, had moved to the Midwestern city to marry her boyfriend, Don Damond.<\/p>\n

She had adopted his surname ahead of their nuptials and they were due to marry a month after the shooting.<\/p>\n

How was Justine Damond killed?<\/h2>\n

Ms Damond called 911 as she believed a sexual assault had taken place in the alley behind her home.<\/p>\n

In court, Noor said he recalled seeing a blonde female in a pink T-shirt approach his squad car on the night of the shooting.<\/p>\n

He said he opened fire because he believed there was an imminent threat after he heard a loud bang and saw Ms Damond with her right arm raised.<\/p>\n

Noor said his partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, shouted “Oh Jesus!” and fumbled with his gun in its holster before “he turned to me with fear in his eyes”.<\/p>\n

The defendant said he “had to make a split-second decision” and shot Ms Damond across his partner through the car window.<\/p>\n

The trial heard the victim lay dying from a gunshot wound just over a minute after ending a phone conversation with her fiance, Don Damond.<\/p>\n

She had told him that police had just arrived after she called them to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind their home. No such attack was ever found to have occurred.<\/p>\n

The death drew international criticism and Australia’s prime minister at the time, Malcolm Turnbull, said it was “inexplicable”.<\/p>\n

What happened in court?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Noor was handcuffed and taken into custody immediately upon being convicted by a jury on Tuesday of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.<\/p>\n

He was acquitted of the most serious charge of second-degree murder with intent to kill.<\/p>\n

Noor told the court that upon realising he had shot an unarmed woman he felt like his “whole world came crashing down”.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/span>
Noor is a former Somalian refugee who joined the police force in 2015 (Image: AFP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prosecutors questioned whether the loud bang was real, pointing out that neither Noor nor his partner initially mentioned anything at the scene about hearing such a noise.<\/p>\n

Ms Damond’s fingerprints were not found on the squad car, the court heard.<\/p>\n

What was the police response?<\/h2>\n

The fallout cost Jane\u00e9 Harteau her job as Minneapolis’ police chief and was a factor in the election defeat of the city’s mayor at elections in November 2017.<\/p>\n

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo apologised to Ms Damond’s friends and family in a statement released after Tuesday’s verdict was read.<\/p>\n

“This was indeed a sad and tragic incident that has affected family, friends, neighbours, the City of Minneapolis and people around the world, most significantly in her home country of Australia,” he said.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The family of an Australian woman shot dead by a police officer has been promised $20m (\u00a315.5m) in compensation by the US city of Minneapolis. Mohamed Noor shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond as she approached his […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[350,109,2,3],"tags":[819,4999,6181,6179,6152,6180,300],"class_list":{"0":"post-14535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"category-headline","9":"category-news","10":"category-usa","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-gun-crime","13":"tag-justine-damond","14":"tag-minneapolis","15":"tag-minnesota","16":"tag-mohamed-noor","17":"tag-shooting","18":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14537,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535\/revisions\/14537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}